Andrew Maddox

Category: Medicine

  • Sunday AI Links (Jan. 25)

    • WSJ: Nvidia Invests $150 Million in AI Inference Startup Baseten (Jan 20, 2026)
      Baseten raised $300 million at a $5 billion valuation in a round led by IVP and CapitalG, with Nvidia investing $150 million. The San Francisco startup provides AI inference infrastructure for customers like Notion and aims to become the “AWS for inference” amid rising investor interest.
    • WSJ: Why Elon Musk Is Racing to Take SpaceX Public (Jan 21, 2026)
      SpaceX abandoned its long-held resistance to an IPO after the rush to build solar-powered AI data centers in orbit made billions in capital necessary, prompting Elon Musk to seek public funding to finance and accelerate orbital AI satellites. The IPO could also boost Musk’s xAI and counter rivals.
    • NY Times: Myths and Facts About Narcissists (Jan 22, 2026)
      Narcissism is a personality trait on a spectrum, not always the clinical N.P.D., and the label is often overused. The article debunks myths—people vary in narcissistic types, may show conditional empathy, often know their traits, can change, and can harm others despite occasional prosocial behavior.
    • ScienceDaily: Stanford scientists found a way to regrow cartilage and stop arthritis (Jan 26, 2026)
      Stanford researchers found that blocking the aging-linked enzyme 15‑PGDH with injections restored hyaline knee cartilage in older mice and prevented post‑injury osteoarthritis. Human cartilage samples responded similarly, and an oral 15‑PGDH inhibitor already in trials for muscle weakness raises hope for non‑surgical cartilage regeneration.
    • Simon Willison: Wilson Lin on FastRender: a browser built by thousands of parallel agents (Jan 23, 2026)
      Simply breathtakign: FastRender is a from‑scratch browser engine built by Wilson Lin using Cursor’s multi‑agent swarms—about 2,000 concurrent agents—producing thousands of commits and usable page renderings in weeks. Agents autonomously chose dependencies, tolerated transient errors, and used specs and visual feedback, showing how swarms let one engineer scale complex development.
    • WSJ: Geothermal Wildcatter Zanskar, Which Uses AI to Find Heat, Raises $115 Million (Jan 21, 2026)
      Geothermal startup Zanskar raised $115 million to use AI and field data to locate “blind” geothermal reservoirs—like Big Blind in Nevada—without surface signs, and has found a 250°F reservoir at about 2,700 feet.
    • WSJ: The AI Revolution Is Coming for Novelists (Jan 21, 2026)
      A novelist and his wife were claimants in the Anthropic settlement over AI training on copyrighted books and will receive $3,000 each, raising what‑is‑just compensation questions for authors’ intellectual property. They urge fair licensing by tech firms as generative AI reshapes publishing and reduces writers’ incomes, yet will keep creating.
    • WSJ Opinion: Successful AI Will Be Simply a Part of Life (Jan 19, 2026)
      AI should be developed as dependable infrastructure—reliable, affordable, accessible and trusted—so it works quietly across languages, cultures and devices without special expertise. Success will be judged by daily use and consistent performance, with built-in privacy, openness and agentic features that reduce friction without forcing users to cede control.
    • WSJ: Anthropic CEO Says Government Should Help Ensure AI’s Economic Upside Is Shared (Jan 20, 2026)
      Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned at Davos that AI could drive 5–10% GDP growth while causing significant unemployment and inequality, predicting possible “decoupling” between a tech elite and the rest of society. He urged government action to share gains and contrasted scientist-led AI firms with engagement-driven social-media companies.
    • WSJ: The Messy Human Drama That Dealt a Blow to One of AI’s Hottest Startups (Jan 20, 2026)
      Mira Murati fired CTO Barret Zoph amid concerns about his performance, trust and an undisclosed workplace relationship; three co‑founders then told her they disagreed with the company’s direction. Within hours Zoph, Luke Metz and Sam Schoenholz rejoined OpenAI, underscoring the AI race’s intense talent competition.
    • WSJ: South Korea Issues Strict New AI Rules, Outpacing the West (Jan 23, 2026)
      “Disclosures of using AI are required for areas related to human protection, such as producing drinking water or safe management of nuclear facilities. Companies must be able to explain their AI system’s decision-making logic, if asked, and enable humans to intervene.”
    • WSJ: CEOs Say AI Is Making Work More Efficient. Employees Tell a Different Story. (Jan 21, 2026)
      WSJ survey of 5,000 white-collar employees at large companies found 40% of non-managers say AI saves them no time weekly, while 27% report under 2 hours and few report large gains. C-suite executives report much bigger savings—many save 8+ hours—with a 38-point divergence.
    • WSJ: Intel Shares Slide as Costs Pile Up in Bid to Meet AI Demand (Jan 22, 2026)
      Intel swung to a Q4 net loss of $333 million and warned of further Q1 losses as heavy spending to ramp new chips and industrywide supply shortages squeezed inventory. It delayed foundry customer announcements and lags AI-chip rivals, though investor funding and new 18A “Panther Lake” chips could help.

  • AI in Medicine

    A.I. doesn’t have to be perfect to be better. It just has to be better….A.I. can support this transformation, but only if we stop disproportionately focusing on rare bad outcomes, as we often do with new technologies.

    Robert Wachter

    NY Times Opinion: Stop Worrying, and Let A.I. Help Save Your Life (Jan 19, 2026)

  • AI in Higher Education & Medicine

    • Roon: Too Bearish on AI (Dec 26, 2025)
      The author admits they were too bearish mid-year, expecting improvements beyond reinforcement learning to be required. After trying Codex, they realized AI progress is clearly in a rapid takeoff.
    • WSJ: These Teenagers Are Already Running Their Own AI Companies (Dec 21, 2025)
      Teenagers are launching AI-powered startups—like 15-year-old Nick Dobroshinsky’s BeyondSPX—using generative models to build products quickly and attract users. Investors note AI lowers technical barriers and accelerates entrepreneurship.
    • WSJ Opinion: AI Means the End of Entry-Level Jobs (Dec 22, 2025)
      AI is eroding entry-level roles that traditionally launch careers, causing younger workers to worry and raising unemployment among 22–25-year-olds in affected sectors. Companies should create new pathways—AI-native roles, mentor-intensive programs, project-based progression, and competency-based advancement—integrating AI and business training to build future talent.
    • Importai Substack: Import AI 438: Silent sirens, flashing for us all (Nov 30, -0001)
      Powerful AI capabilities are often hidden from everyday users — tools like Claude Code can rapidly build complex software, and by 2026 an “AI economy” will accelerate and diverge from everyday experience, benefiting those who can access and elicit frontier systems.
    • Johannes Schmitt: AI model (GPT-5) autonomously solved an open math problem (Dec 17, 2025)
      GPT-5 autonomously solved an open enumerative-geometry problem, giving a complete, correct proof for ψ-class intersection numbers on moduli spaces of curves. 
    • NY Times Opinion: College Students Need Tech-Free Spaces (Dec 19, 2025)
      Colleen Kinder had Yale students surrender their phones for a four‑week, Wi‑Fi‑free writing course in Auvillar, France, and reports improved sleep, focus, reading speed, and creativity, with far greater writing output. She argues colleges should create internet‑free tracts, dorms, or “cloisters” to protect learning from constant distraction.
    • NOAA: NOAA deploys new generation of AI-driven global weather models (Dec 17, 2025)
      NOAA launched AI-driven global models—AIGFS, AIGEFS, and hybrid HGEFS—that provide faster, more accurate forecasts using far fewer computing resources (AIGFS ~0.3%, AIGEFS ~9%). HGEFS’s combined AI‑physics ensemble outperforms each system; NOAA reports better tropical cyclone tracks but will refine intensity forecasts.
    • WSJ: Millions of Kids Are on ADHD Pills. For Many, It’s the Start of a Drug Cascade. (Nov 19, 2025)
      The WSJ reports that many children put on ADHD drugs—often after school pressure and lacking behavioral therapy—receive additional psychotropic medications to manage side effects or perceived disorders. Medicaid data show that those started on ADHD meds in 2019 were over five times likelier to be on psychiatric drugs four years later.